The silver lining for fans, however, is that this doesn’t necessarily mean there won’t be any more music coming our way from Lifeson and fellow band members Geddy Lee and Neil Peart.

“I’ve actually been busier lately than I have been in a while,” Lifeston explains. “I’m writing a lot. I’m writing on four or five different little projects. I get these requests to do guitar work with other people. It’s really a lot of fun for me. It’s low pressure. I get to be as creative as I want to be and I can work a little outside of the box, which is really attractive to me.”

Another project that’s definitely “outside of the box” for the guitarist is his new gig as a columnist for the West End Phoenix, a Toronto-area community newspaper launched by Dave Bidini of The Rheostatics.

“It’s fun to put yourself in an uncomfortable situation,” Lifeson tells the Globe and Mail. “If you have a little bit of confidence and you just get out of your own way, these things can happen.”